Former Booze in the News Stories

BBC, 19 January 2012, Beer 'must be sold' at Brazil World Cup, says Fifa, the sale of alcohol in sports stadia is not permitted in Brazil on the grounds of promoting health and reducing violence. This has been the case since 2003. Budweiser is a major sponsor of the FIFA world cup and together Budweiser and FIFA are working together to force a change in Brazilian policy in order to increase alcohol sales.

EPC Alcohol

In 2001 the European Commission had begun the process of developing an alcohol strategy for Europe, which initially involved gathering information on the extent of alcohol related harm and possible policy solutions. By 2006 the initial European Alcohol Strategy were being slowly introduced. The alcohol industry were against a Europe wide strategy, but were keen for any action to be based on self regulation of the industry.

In 2005 and 2006, just before the introduction of the strategy, DG Sanco asked the European Policy Centre (EPC) to host four meetings between the alcohol industry and health NGOs. These Round Table on “Alcohol related harm: ways forward” aimed to reach consensus on policy interventions and to ‘identify areas of agreement between the stakeholders as to actions that can contribute effectively to the reduction of alcohol-related harm and indicate where and why there is disagreement, and in so doing help create confidence between stakeholders’.[1] According to the Institute of Alcohol Studies these meetings were "At the behest of the [alcohol] Industry, DG SANCO officials organised roundtable discussion through the aegis of the European Policy Centre, between representatives of the Commission, Member States, Industry and NGOs to discuss the draft proposals for a European Alcohol Policy Strategy". [2]

The meetings involved working through 78 issues or policy proposals related to alcohol harm reduction that were presented by the European Commission in an informal draft of their communication on Alcohol. Participants graded each item using a traffic lights system, green issues were broadly agreeable to all present, amber a possibility and red a clear no. 68 of the measures were marked green, Seven were amber, indicating no overall agreement but that some compromises might be reached. Three were categorised as red issues where the industry simply refused to negotiate. [3]

Dr Peter Anderson, author of the Alcohol In Europe report (2006) commented “The European Policy Centre (EPC) describes itself as ‘an independent, not-for-profit think tank, committed to making European integration work’. Its independence is, of course, ensured by the fact that its prime corporate members and sponsors include InBev, the world’s largest brewer and Philip Morris International”. [4] The final outcome of this process, and other consultations resulted in the launch of the European Alcohol and Health Forum.